What a joke... They must be quite fit, running around all day to avoid resposibility...

Hello Peter,

I bought a laundry machine from Makro in Centurion, Gauteng, South Africa, that was on special. They require an additional fee for delivery and installation (pretty standard stuff, about 10-20% of retail value). Up until now everything is still cheery.

Now things go pear-shaped... They deliver the machine the following Tuesday evening at about 7 pm, quite a bit later than they organised, but non the less the machine is delivered and I'm thankful to have the machine. So the installation begins and these blokes just make a mess of everything. Noah's flood in the cupboards messy. They eventually stop moving around and just stand there staring at the machine. They had for some reason curt off the rubber connector that allows the outflow pipe to connect to the drain. After a few minutes one of the two guys starts explaining to me that he can't finish the installation because he doesn't have the tools/parts with him.

The installation guy can't install something because he doesn't have his installation tools and installation parts(?) with him. Well, that's f@#king fantastic.

He tells me that what I need is something I can get at any hardware store, and knowing that there's a DIY shop around my corner and being painfully aware of the colossal cleanup job ahead of me, I sent them on their merry way.

Turns out they ****. The connector was not quite that common. I only found it on my third hardware store visit. Also turns out that the connector needs the rubber bit the cut off. In the meantime I try every piece of advice the hardware store guys give me but nothing works. Because all the products are designed to connect to the universal rubber end they cut off...

Now back to Makro. I start calling these guys. I spent about half an hour on hold just for someone to pickup on the other end and then put it down in my ear. All the while I have to listen that awful elevator music. This happened 3 times before someone eventually listened to my complaint/query/request for assistance. The person on the other end was the first glimmer of hope in this whole experience, and if I knew who they were I'd send them a box of chocolates.

So they put me into contact with a manager there. I complain to him about the unfinished job the installation guys did and the importance of the rubber end of the outlet pipe. He guarantees me he'll get a team out to fix things. That was a Tuesday morning. The team got there on Friday... Now I'm a patient guy, but I'm starting to feel a tad... irritated.

The team gets there and after 5 mins looking at the pipe they agree that the other guys had ****ed up. They tell me they can't fix it (I had expected as much) but that they would tell the manager that sent them that the machine needs to be replaced. It took another 2 teams coming out and photographic evidence for the manager to concede that maybe the machine needed to be replaced. What a ****.

So having finally agreed to come pick up the machine and replace it with a new one, we organise a pickup time. Hahahahaha you guessed it, they didn't show the first day. And then they were late the second day. But finally things are progressing. Yesterday they were to come drop off and install the new machine. No shows again. Today they pitch up only to tell us that they're not going to replace the machine and we were going to have to wait four weeks for a new pipe.

Please understand that what I described above has taken just over four weeks already. I finally flipped you guys. Four weeks of the promise fixing our machine. Four weeks being constantly ****ed around. The flip-out was royal.

I'm still waiting to hear back from the manager, but despite the product having a three year warranty and having paid the installation fees.

PS this is my first complaint here, and I really hope that I won't have to complain again anytime soon, but just for interests sake am I allowed to post the managers name and surname? I think Makro could do with a higher employee turnover rate.